Aromatics are important basic raw materials for petrochemical industry, widely useful for polyester, chemical fiber, rubber and the like fields. Benzene, toluene, and xylene are the most widely used three aromatics, wherein PX is mostly demanded and has the widest use. Currently, the production of aromatics in the world depends predominantly on the non-renewable fossil resource, whilst due to the limited reserves and non-renewability of the fossil resource, the cost for producing aromatics is increasing. In addition, the continual exploitation and utilization of the fossil resource results in significant discharge of greenhouse gases, leading to more and more serious environmental problems. Therefore, it is of significant importance to develop a process of producing aromatics (especially xylene) from renewable resources.
As a renewable resource, it is now interested in producing aromatics (especially xylene) using biomass as a raw material. There are reports in the prior art about converting biomass into aromatics, and also about platform compounds therefor (see, e.g., Katherine Bourzac, From biomass to chemicals In one step, MIT Technology Review, 2010-03-29; US20090227823 and US20110257416A1).
However, these prior arts have a general disadvantage of a relatively low carbon availability during the conversion from biomass to aromatics, resulting in a relatively low yield of aromatics too. In addition, these prior arts have another general disadvantage of relatively low proportion of xylene (e.g., PX) in the aromatics obtained using the platform compound from prior art to produce aromatics, resulting in increased operation cost and operation complexity of the subsequent separation and purification steps for providing PX product in a high purity.